Addicted for Now (Addicted #2)(49)

“The lacrosse season,” Aaron deadpanned, eyes cold.

“The meteorologists are inventing new seasons now? That’s impressive.”

I should have seen that coming, considering Lo wasn’t in the best mood. Not after we had sex and ignored the event. Not after he guzzled straight whiskey from his flask on the ride here.

Aaron had kept his composure. “You can bring your girlfriend if you’d like.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Lo said.

At the admittance, I turned around from my locker, books in my arms. Aaron sized me up, not crudely, and when his eyes landed on mine, he looked at me with such intense pity. Like he felt bad that I had to endure Lo.

Aaron didn’t understand us. No one did.

“You’re definitely invited,” Aaron said directly to me. “And I can introduce you to some nice guys.”

“Yeah, she’s not looking for a nice guy,” Lo said. He was right. If I wanted someone who would take me on a date, treat me right, and call the next morning—I’d date someone from Dalton. But I wanted the lay. The type of guy who could sleep with me and forget about it as soon as we left the room. I wanted easy. Nice guys were complicated.

I spoke up before Aaron could. “It’s okay. I don’t go to parties. I mean, Dalton parties.” Rule number one: Do not have sex with boys from Dalton. Otherwise everyone would have figured out that I slept around.

Aaron frowned. “That’s kind of weird.”

“Thanks?” I said before turning to Lo, ready to leave.

“You both realize this is going to be the party of the year,” Aaron said in confusion, his pride finally starting to ruffle. Yes, Aaron, we had been serious about not wanting to go. Though, I was positive it would be one hell of a party. Giant punch bowls. Neon lights. Good drugs. Maybe even a famous DJ. But I would choose to miss it all just to avoid being gossiped about the next morning.

Lo met my gaze, and I could see him cracking. Probably under the assumption that there would be good liquor too. I gave him a look. Dalton parties were my bane. The entire student population flocks to them, and so I would have to spend my time in the corner, trying to avoid leering gazes and making sure Lo didn’t pass out.

He gave me those big pleading eyes, and I realized he was going to the party with or without me. So I just nodded.

Lo turned to Aaron and flashed a fake smile. “We’ll see you Friday.”

Aaron layered on his own mock happiness. “Perfect.”

Only it hadn’t been perfect. It was one of the worst parties in the history of parties. So bad, in fact, that the event blacklisted us from any social function related to Dalton. And I didn’t even attend Aaron’s stupid blowout.

I wasn’t the one who opened all of Wells’ expensive booze. I didn’t grab a lacrosse stick and stumble around, somehow ending up in the wine cellar. I didn’t take out all my frustration on two-hundred-year-old bottles that fractured and broke. I didn’t drown the cellar and my pain in a pool of red.

But Lo sure as hell did.

And I should have been there. Sometimes I wonder if that would have changed the outcome. I could have stopped Lo, and then maybe Aaron and his friends wouldn’t have hated him so much.

The wine-cellar debacle started their rivalry.

Then it mushroomed from there. First with silly stuff, like slapping Lo’s textbooks from his hands. But then three of them cornered Lo, about to grab onto his arms and legs and stuff him in a locker. Lo ran before they could touch him. He was good at that. Running away.

Lo has admitted to me, and only me, that it was his fault the entire feud started in the first place, but he just didn’t know how to end it once it began. Like dominos that kept tumbling down and down and down. He wasn’t big enough to step away, to back off. He had taken too much shit at home to let someone else run over him.

Over the next four years in school, they passively hated each other and sometimes the passivity turned to fists, but Lo was quick to dodge all attacks. It wasn’t until our senior year that everything changed. I think, in part, Aaron had become tired of how teachers fawned over Lo and how he seemed to have special treatment that extended beyond athletes.

I was seventeen and in a fake relationship with Lo. For the first time, Aaron realized that there was a way to reach Lo without him running away.

He could mess with me.

Aaron started following me to class, and then a week later, he blocked me against a wall, ever so casually, with his lacrosse player friends in tow. To everyone else, they probably looked like they stood there for a quick chat, but whenever I met Aaron’s eyes, I saw only hate.

The fourth time he cornered me, I was in the library, trying desperately to find a book on Renaissance Art. Secluded in the back, between two book cases, I picked out a red spine and was ready to hightail it to lunch. When I looked up, my exit had been obstructed by a six-foot guy with athletic muscles and hardened brows.

Hatred is an animal you feed, and I imagined that after four years, Aaron’s became plump and bloated. The seemingly nice guy who invited me to a party my freshman year of prep school had turned cold and mean. At least towards me.

His eyes were dark, and he stepped forward. My heart thudded against my chest as I stumbled back. He continued his stride and my back hit the wall.

“I have to get to lunch,” I said in a small voice. I didn’t know what he was going to do. He’d already laid a fist into Lo. (He got a week’s suspension and Lo got a Friday detention), so I thought maybe he was preparing to hit me…or at least scare me.